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by Ninja_Librarian



Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Happy Valentine's Day!, Injury, M/M, Mallard-McQuack Family Fluff, Me: Huh I've never whumped a Launchpad before..., Set post Let's Get Dangerous!, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29416623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninja_Librarian/pseuds/Ninja_Librarian
Summary: Drake and Gosalyn have been keeping secrets. Launchpad is suspicious and worried.Then a bullet puts things in perspective.
Relationships: Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack
Comments: 7
Kudos: 87





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**Author's Note:**

> This is the piece that I wrote for the sadly cancelled Drakepad Zine. Hope you all enjoy and Happy Valentine's Day!

Drake and Gosalyn had been acting weird lately, and Launchpad had absolutely no idea why. It was almost as if they were hiding something from him. No, he _knew_ that they were keeping secrets from him. Launchpad knew this because he knew exactly what Drake and Gosalyn looked like when they were keeping secrets. Drake was acting the same way he had that one time when Launchpad almost walked in on him wrapping Hanukkah presents. And Gos was acting like the time she broke a glass cabinet when playing hockey in the Tower like she wasn’t supposed to and trying to distract her dad from noticing. (Spoiler alert: he did notice and Gosalyn was grounded for a week.)

No matter how hard he thought about it, Launchpad just couldn’t figure out what the secret was. Everything in the Tower seemed to be in one piece, and there were no upcoming birthdays or holidays in which presents needed to be hidden. Report cards weren’t due for another month, and Launchpad was fairly certain that Drake wasn’t hiding any injuries sustained during crime fighting. Basically, Launchpad couldn’t think of any reasons for the two people he loved the most to be keeping secrets from him.

However, Launchpad did notice some small things. How eagerly Gosalyn waited for the mail to come, and that Drake was having these long phone calls in hushed voices with someone whose identity was unknown to Launchpad. And then there was the time he had arrived at the Tower in preparation for a night out of crime fighting, and found Drake and Gosalyn in Drake’s room. Upon realizing he was in the doorway, Gosalyn had tossed herself across the bed to lay on her side in a way that was clearly meant to be casual while Drake shoved something in his dresser so fast that he slammed the drawer on his fingers.

Launchpad thought he might have been able to handle this all better if he thought Gosalyn and Drake each had their own secret, perhaps one they didn’t want the other to know about, and therefore didn’t want Launchpad to know about. But this was a shared secret, and Launchpad felt a bit left out. Okay, a lot left out. And worried. And infinitely curious as to what his boyfriend and Gosalyn were keeping from him.

“Maybe I’m just overthinking this,” Launchpad told Dewey over burritos on their weekly lunch meet-up.

Dewey sucked on his straw for a moment before saying, “I dunno, LP. It’s kinda weird that both Drake and Gos are being secretive at the same time, right?”

Launchpad’s shoulders slumped. That was _not_ what he had wanted to hear.

Dewey set down his cup and grabbed another chip, dunking it in salsa as he said, “Look, Launchpad, if I know one thing for sure, it’s that Drake and Gos really love you, and aren’t trying to hurt your feelings or anything. Whatever it is, they’ll tell you the secret when they’re ready. Now let’s order some dessert. I’m thinking churros, because who doesn’t love churros, am I right?”

Launchpad loved churros. But even that sweet, cinnamon-sugar goodness combined with Dewey’s reassurances weren’t enough to stop Launchpad from wondering and worrying. (That also didn’t stop him from eating a whole order of churros by himself either.)

Fortunately, Launchpad found that he wasn’t worrying about Drake and Gosalyn’s secrets as much after that lunch with Dewey.

Unfortunately, it was because a bullet gave him bigger concerns.

*****

It had started out as a fairly quiet night on patrol. It was just Launchpad and Darkwing, Gosalyn staying home to finish an essay that was due the following morning. When the silent alarm went off at the St. Canard Museum of Art, Darkwing Duck and his trusty partner, Launchpad, were quick to jump into action.

They were big thugs for art thieves, clearly the hired muscle for the brains behind the operation. Everything was a blur of action. Punches were thrown, glass was broken, clever insults in the forms of puns were uttered, and purple smoke-bombs accompanied the iconic “I am the terror that flaps in the night” speech.

Launchpad didn’t hear the crack of the gun, only felt the impact of the bullet hitting his shoulder and heard Darkwing’s anguished cry as he hit the floor. Nothing hurt. He was too numb to feel pain. He had adrenaline to thank for that, Huey would tell him later, citing the JWG.

Launchpad blacked out after that, with pieces of memories about what happened next.

Darkwing beside him, his white gloves quickly turning scarlet as he put pressure on the wound, his eyes wide as he said, “Hang on, LP, help is on the way.”

Waking up briefly in a very white room, hearing Drake’s voice, muffled from distance, yelling, “You have to let me in! I know I’m not his emergency contact, they’re on their way, I swear—he needs someone! Please!”

The next time Launchpad woke up was the first time he actually felt pain. His shoulder was the epicenter of the fiery pain that radiated through his body. Even opening his eyes hurt, though the room was dark. Something solid and warm was pressed against his not-injured side, and glancing down he saw that the something in question had a mess of dark red curly hair. Gosalyn looked up at him with teary eyes, her face bursting into a smile.

“Launchpad!” She exclaimed, carefully sitting up.

“Gos,” Launchpad mumbled, petting her on the head weakly.

Gosalyn scrambled off the bed, stood on her toes to kiss his cheek, then said, “Hang on, I’m going to get Dad.”

Launchpad drifted in and out as he heard the sound of Gosalyn’s bare feet slapping on the linoleum, quickly followed by more rapid footsteps. Launchpad barely got a glimpse of Drake, looking exhausted but relieved, before Drake and Gosalyn were both removed from the room by a doctor and nurse, the latter of whom gave Launchpad some more pain medication that sent him back to a dreamless sleep.

The next time Launchpad drifted awake, he heard the whispering voices of Drake and Gosalyn.

“—says it’ll be a few more days before he can go home.”

“Yeah, but which one?”

“Which one what?”

“Home. Duckburg? Or… Or here with us in St. Canard?”

“That’ll be up to Launchpad, Gos. Wherever he feels most comfortable recovering.”

There was a beat of silence, then she whispered, “But he’s _our_ home.”

Drake sighed. “I know, Gos. I know.”

A few days later, when the pain wasn’t so bad and he was awake and coherent for longer than a few short minutes, Launchpad was alone with Scrooge McDuck. Drake had stepped out for a few minutes to grab some coffee, giving them some privacy to chat. Amongst other things, they talked about Launchpad’s recovery—and where it was going to take place.

“Until you’ve got better mobility in that arm of yours and the doctors give the all clear, I know I’ll sleep easier if you stay at the mansion,” Scrooge said. “Quite frankly, lad, I’ve seen that apartment of yours and worry you’re going to get gangrene. We can’t have that, now, can we? No, the mansion is the best place for you to recover.”

“Thanks, Mr. McD,” Launchpad said, then he took a deep breath and said, quickly, before he could stop himself, “But I was, uh, I was thinking… I was thinking of staying here. In St. Canard. At least for a while.”

Scrooge’s brow furrowed for a moment, then a smile crossed the Scotsman’s face. “Ah,” He said solemnly. “You’ll be staying with Drake and Gosalyn, then?”

Launchpad nodded.

Scrooge leaned back in his chair, studying Launchpad for a moment. “I had a feeling we were going to be coming to this point sooner or later, lad.”

“What point?” Launchpad asked, confused.

“The point where you want to stay in St. Canard,” Scrooge said. “I knew this would be coming, the moment you told me you’d be spending your days in Duckburg and your nights here. For you, it doesn’t matter where you live. What does matter is the people. Your family. And while I want to make sure you know you’ll always have a family in Duckburg, I also want you to know that I’m proud of you and couldn’t be happier that you found a family in Drake and Gosalyn. You need them, and they need you. The three of you may have found each other in the most cockamamie way imaginable, but I’m glad you did.”

Launchpad grinned. “Mr. McD, I’d hug you right now if I felt like I could actually move. And my arm wasn’t in this sling.”

Scrooge chuckled and got to his feet, putting his hat on his head. “I’ll accept an IOU just this once. Now, how about I go let in Mr. Mallard before he gives himself an ulcer from worrying, eh?”

“So, what did you and Mr. McDuck talk about?” Drake asked, trying to sound casual as he arranged some flowers in a vase.

“Not much,” Launchpad told him, watching as Drake tidied up the small space. “He, uh, offered to let me recover at the mansion.”

“Oh?” Drake said, quickly turning so that his back was to Launchpad. “Yeah? So, uh, that’s great.”

“I told him I was going to stay here.”

Drake’s shoulders went back and he whipped around, staring at Launchpad incredulously.

“You… you want to stay?” Drake said, his eyes wide. “At the Tower? With me? And Gos? When you could be resting in a mansion with featherbeds and a ghost butler?”

“Yeah,” Launchpad said, nodding. “I want to be with you.” The look on Drake’s face, the tone of his voice, however, made Launchpad start to regret being so hasty. He remembered that Drake and Gos were still hiding something. Maybe they didn’t want him around after all… “I mean, if you’d rather I—”

“No!” Drake said quickly, shaking his head. “No. I mean, I want you to. Stay, that is. If that’s where you’re comfortable, if that’s what you want.”

“I want to be with you,” Launchpad asserted. “Nowhere else I’d rather be.”

A smile slid softly over Drake’s beak. “I feel the same way, LP.”

*****

Launchpad leaned back on the couch, tilting his head back and inhaling deeply. The smell of sea water, burst smoke bombs, motor oil, and burnt pizza filled his nostrils. He wasn’t sure when this combination became his favorite scent in the world, but it was like a breath of fresh air having finally been released from the sterile hospital.

“ _C’mon_ , Dad,” He heard Gosalyn say impatiently.

Drake replied, “No, Gos, I think he’s asleep, we can—”

“I’m awake,” Launchpad called, opening his eyes. “Just glad to be home.”

“We’re glad you’re home, too,” Goslayn said, coming to climb onto the couch beside Launchpad, Drake taking the seat on his other side.

“We, uh, we wanted to talk with you about something,” Drake said, looking a bit embarrassed, his eyes glancing at the floor like he usually did when he was nervous. He cleared his throat. “Launchpad, when I first met you, I had no idea just how much my life would change just from meeting another _Darkwing Duck_ fan in a sofa store parking lot. I definitely didn’t know that it’d lead to us becoming friends, and then partners as crime-fighting superheroes, and then much more than friends. I definitely didn’t expect Gosalyn to drop into our lives. And before I met the two of you, I didn’t realize that I had this big gaping hole in my life until that void was filled.”

“We all just kind of clicked together,” Gosalyn added. “Like we were meant to be. It just took us a while to find each other.”

“The point is, the three of us, we’re a family,” Drake said, reaching behind him, underneath a pillow. “And Gosalyn and I have been talking, and we realized that we would like to make our family a little more official.”

Launchpad’s eyes widened as Drake pulled out a small, velvet box, getting down on one knee in front of him. Drake’s eyes were bright, the smile on his face big and somewhat goofy as he opened the box, revealing a silver ring.

“Launchpad McQuack, will you make me the happiest man in the whole world and marry me?”

“Yes!” Launchpad exclaimed, the answer ready on this tip of his tongue—an answer that he had ready for a long time, he just didn’t know it. Drake let out an ‘oof’ as Launchpad grabbed him with his good arm, pulling him in tight for a hug.

Drake laughed and eased himself back from the hug, reaching up to put his hands on either side of Launchpad’s face, pulling him in for a kiss. When they broke apart, they both had tears in their eyes, smiling and laughing.

“And here I was, worrying you might say no,” Drake said, swiping at his eyes, looking a bit sheepish.

“Never,” Launchpad said, giving him another quick kiss before fully releasing Drake. He turned to look at Gosalyn, to wrap her in a hug as well, but paused when he saw that Gosalyn, too, was on one knee, a much larger box in her hands, the lid open revealing a bunch of… papers? And a pen? Wait, those papers looked very similar to the ones Drake signed when he…

Gosalyn had the biggest grin on her face as she said, “Launchpad McQuack, will you make me the happiest kid in whole entire world and become my Launch- _Dad_?”

Launchpad felt tears well into his eyes as he brought a hand to his mouth, nodding, not trusting his voice. Gosalyn wanted him to adopt her. She wanted him— _him_ , Launchpad McQuack!—to be her father.

Gosalyn laughed as Launchpad swooped her up into his lap, pressing kisses to the top of her head, papers flying everywhere, as Drake mumbled behind them, “Knew I should have stapled those—OOF! Hey, LP, be careful, you’re going to pop your stitches!”

Lying there, on the couch in the Tower, Drake wriggling and grumbling beneath him to find a comfortable position, Gosalyn on top of him, tucked into his arm, the last thing in the world Launchpad cared about was his stitches.

All he cared about was that his boyfriend—no, _fiancé_ , his husband-to-be—was holding him, pressing tender kisses to his forehead and whispering “I love you” in his ear.

All he cared about was that his soon-to-be-daughter was in his arms, smiling that smile that made him so happy, the smile he wanted to protect.

All he cared about was that he was home.


End file.
